About

As an outlet for my interest - okay, my obsession - with domestic ducks and agrarian living, the Duckstead web site has arrived!

This site is the hub for musings about the ducks, their role in the interconnected, Permaculture-inspired design of our little plot of land, and a source for books, podcasts, e-books and videos on related topics.

My first book, "Carmella, Where Is Your Quack?" is intended to be for reading aloud to young children, or for young readers (or adults who just want an easy read about sweet ducks). It is available from three different sources.

You could order it through Amazon.

You could order it through Createspace, where you need a free login.

You could order it from me, so that I can sign it if you wish. The cost to buy it from me is $7 per book plus postage. E-mail me at hodgsonbiologic@gmail.com for additional details.

Please see my blog post on the Down on the Duckstead page for the urls to use to get to the Createspace and Amazon pages for the book.

Feb 25

Loose Ends Update

Mud Paint

The first coat of mud paint has dried, and looks pretty nice. It is a medium to light gray, and the light green pigment, of course, does not show up at all. Lesson learned. I really like the graininess of the paint with sand in it - it looks like an earthen wall. And that is exactly what I wanted.

Next step is to make another batch and paint a second coat. Based on what I learned from the first layer, I plan these changes:

Skip the sand - just use clay, wheat paste and pigmentUse much more and a much darker pigment

Once the second coat is dry, then I'll know whether I want to burnish the wall to smooth it out, leave it as is, or go over it with a coat of watered-down wheat paste.

New Ducks

Today was an unusually warm day for this time of year, so Salem and Alba spent part of their afternoon in the back yard in a small temporary pen seeing their future flock mates for the first time.

Video was taken, and will be edited and uploaded in the fullness of time. There will also be commentary on this first step of introducktions. Yes, I spelled that correctly.

Gardens

The joys of my full and blessed life sometimes get in the way of each other. So I have not started seeds yet. I am not terrifically dismayed - the weather here has been creepy non-standard, so when and whether to plant is a bit of a guess for me.

Still, I have the onion seeds and will figure out how to get them into some starter soil and under lights. Salem and Alba are in the room that becomes the greenhouse, so there will be some tile-game-like rearranging . Soon.

Ferments

The baby SCOBYs are visible, now, looking good, all three of them. The ginger bug seemed to work, and the ginger ale has been started. I think it will be bottled in the next couple of days. We keep the house a reasonable low 60sF to a more frugal 55F at night, so ferments can be a little slow this time of year. We had to move one of the tender peperomia plants closer to the wood stove to keep it from expiring.

Fodder

I caught a virus a week ago and apparently it has a symptom called forget-to-water-things. The dried sprouts will be put to good use somehow, and we will start again. That's the beauty of composting.